Through a combination of skill, pace and strategy in difficult conditions Aaron Mason and Rob Barrable took a maiden British GT4 victory for RCIB Insurance Racing Team HARD, their Ginetta G55 GT4 adding to a dominant clutch of victories for the Ginetta marque in this year’s British GT4 championship. The #75 car came from the back of the GT4 grid as the team’s clever pit-work outmanoeuvred the rest of the field in a three hour race punctuated by safety car periods and changing conditions.
After three laps under the safety car, pole-sitter Sandy Mitchell’s Black Bull Ecurie Ecosse McLaren 570S GT4 struggled to hold station in the wet conditions. Jack Bartholomew positioned his Beechdean Aston Martin GT4 well enough at the green flag to make a bold move around the outside at Copse, leading the first racing lap ahead of a huge 33-car field of GT4 machinery bolstered by some glorious (if not occasionally controversial) European GT4 championship runners.
The McLaren would be one of several cars struggling to get to grips at race pace, down to fourth before Mitchell recovered the places from Graham Johnson’s championship-leading Ginetta and Jack Mitchell’s MacMillan Aston Martin to sit second and start closing the gap back to the Beechdean car. Mitchell’s McLaren had been solid all weekend and was soon lapping two seconds faster, onto the back of the Aston Martin and taking a look, though unable to risk the pass.
With the GT4 leaders starting to eat into the tail end of the GT3 field, looking most racy in the early stages was certainly Marcus Hoggarth’s Ebor GT machine. No more the lone Maserati (at this event), the GT MC GT4 looked good around Silverstone, moving up to third from thirteenth on the combined GT4 grid as it made what seemed easy work of Silverstone’s power hungry layout.
Aside from the Beechdean car leading, with half an hour gone the cars that would figure later in the race were well down the field as the first safety car period was given to clear debris from an accident in the European GT4 field. Significantly the #75 RCIB Ginetta was the last in, a lap later than everyone else. And as the safety car stayed out for an extended period, causing no small degree of consternation in its wave-by procedure, the #75 car gained track position massively. The Ecurie Ecosse McLaren had assumed the lead again through the safety car period but was soon brought into the pits with an intermittent engine issue.
At the green therefore it was Rob Barrable now aboard the #75 Ginetta that had the lead by some distance. Jordan Albert in the #407 Beechdean Aston was second from Abbie Eaton, who’d got the jump on the #50 PMW Expo Ginetta of Mike Robinson in her Ebor GT Maserati. The championship- leading Ginetta that had shown so strongly in previous rounds wasn’t having its greatest weekend, lacking a couple of seconds of the leaders’ pace.
Eaton pressed on, notably avoiding a major incident as she found herself in a BMW sandwich through Woodcote, then wrestling second place from Jordan Albert’s Aston Martin in a gripping exchange. Behind, Joey Foster now had the #51 Lanan Racing Ginetta in third. The car had been a dark horse over the last couple of events and was showing consistent pace four seconds behind Albert.
Jordan Stilp was continuing the form of the other RCIB Ginetta, fourth ahead of Mike Robinson who would soon lose a further place to the rapidly advancing Jamie Stanley in the Fox Motorsport Ginetta, the #48 car a welcome return to the British GT4 field this weekend. Nathan Freke’s Century Ginetta was closing in on this battle, a sturdy opening stint earlier from team mate Anna Walewska keeping the car out of trouble and making steady progress as a result.
At half distance the track was showing signs of a dry line yet the cars held out on wets with the next scheduled stops to come. A great battle for second to sixth was building as the Ginettas closed in on Albert’s Aston Martin, the young Beechdean driver responding but telling DSC after the race he’d found his braking points difficult in the changing conditions.
The Ebor GT Maserati had assumed the lead before pitting, electing to take on slicks and was potentially looking good. But the choice would be thwarted as enough rain returned. The car would finish sixth.
As a short third safety car period intervened, neutralising the field through a further brief shower, Barrable kept the leading #75 Ginetta out as long as his tyres would hold (he’s driven in the WRC remember). Extending the gap to over half a lap before handing to Aaron Mason, this was to be a critical move in taking their win, a pit stop and switch to slicks timed perfectly as the showers passed.
At this point, significantly for the championship, Mike Robinson’s weekend was over. Sharing the gravel on the outside of the tight left hander at Vale with the ABBA /Rollcentre GT3 BMW, the #50 PMW Expo Optimum Ginetta had been shunted hard under braking, its left-rear quarter destroyed.
The Jordan Stilp’s spin at Luffield in deteriorating conditions also dropped the #45 Ginetta out of contention.
With just over 30 minutes to go, the last stops put Barrable back into the #75 Ginetta, his resuming lead 20 seconds once the others cycled through. Nathan Freke’s progress had been typically solid with the #73 Century Ginetta, placing him second once Jamie Stanley’s Fox Motorsport Ginetta made a much delayed stop. The gap from the lead was to be unassailable though; Jordan Albert brought the #407 Aston Martin home third after a strong performance for the young Beechdean crew that was rarely outside the top three.
Matt Nicoll-Jones’ Academy Motorsport made a strong one-off return to take fourth place, the #62 Aston Martin Vantage GT4 he shared with Dennis Strandberg showing good pace, but not quite getting the breaks through the safety car periods.
Century Motorsport’s team championship point score would be helped as Sean Byrne and Aleks Schjerpen brought their #40 Ginetta home fifth, another steady run proving reliability and consistency are often worth more than outright speed in this series.
The #59 McLaren which had showed so much promise throughout the weekend was seen pulling up on the last lap, its persistent engine problems finally getting the better of it. In addition to a stop/go for a re-start infringement the weekend hadn’t really delivered for the Ecurie Ecosse team.
In better news, the new #66 Nick Jones Porsche Cayman GT4 had survived its first event to post a top ten finish, more hopefully to come (see separate story), and the Work In Progress #86 GPRM Toyota finally recorded a finish having shown pace if not yet the required reliability.
Rob Barrable: “When you look at the entry you think ’Jesus, just being in the mix would be nice!’ So did we expect the win? No. We had a good strategy, worked hard on the car yesterday and overnight, and just concentrated on being consistent and staying as strong as we could in the conditions. The pit-stops went perfectly and we took the right tyres at the right time. Getting down to a quick dry time helped me in the final stint. When the safety car came in towards the end we were ready for full race pace.”
Aaron Mason: “After struggling to get used to the car and the problems we had with traffic at Oulton Park, this is a fantastic result for the team, who did a great job. Looking back I don’t know where we found the time..! After I pitted and Rob jumped in the car we gained some time on the leaders, which we managed to maintain through the race, dropping back and jumping forwards again as the other guys did their pit stops and it played out.”
Anna Walewska: “We showed at Rockingham that we can come from the back of the grid to challenge for the win, and it proves that we have quite a good pairing. After Oulton Park coming here we had nothing to lose. My qualifying lap was compromised so we were P9 on the grid, so I just thought I’d go for it and see what I could do. I have done a lot of testing in the wet in this car and around here in the wet too, so we had a good set-up. The car stuck like glue so I knew I could push. The strategy was strong; we knew when to box and what to put on so hats off to the team.”
Nathan Freke: “Massive credit to the team who gave us a great car and worked really, really hard on the permutations before the race: as it went on it played out and got better and better. Conditions weren’t as bad as we expected to be honest. The grip levels even when we were on slicks in the wet were pretty astonishing. The last ten minutes were probably the worst because it was bad at one part of the circuit and not so bad at others. By that time we knew we couldn’t catch the guys in first and were playing safe in second. We had one-way radio communication from about half way through the race and sometimes I was battling with cars that wasn’t always for position and taking unnecessary risks so I thought ’OK, if something fast comes from behind I’ll let it pass and otherwise just push as hard as I can.’ “
Jordan Albert: “It was challenging in the conditions and strategy played a big part. Jack did a good opening stint to get us into position before the safety car came out at the right time to calm things down a bit. I had a good battle with the Maserati before it started to dry out, then it was trying to decide which tyres to take and how long to stay out for. We went to slicks early and knew Jack was going to struggle for a bit before the conditions came to the tyres, it made braking a bit difficult so we had to settle for position. Thankfully our championship rivals didn’t have the best race so P3 is good for our situation.”
